The Orange County District Attorney’s Office on Thursday blasted a letter by more than three dozen former prosecutors and legal heavy-hitters calling for a federal investigation into the use of jailhouse informants as ill-timed and ill informed.

The office of District Attorney Tony Rackauckas issued a statement complaining that the request by UC Irvine School of Law Dean Erwin Chemerinsky and others for an outside investigation came as prosecutors are picking a jury in a major double-murder case.

“The innocent victims’ families in People v. Wozniak have been waiting for justice in this case for nearly five and a half years, before the Honorable Judge John D. Conley ruled that the public defender had merely repeated baseless accusations and allegations that were untrue,” the statement from the District Attorney’s Office said.

Prosecutors said Thursday that they have tried to engage Chemerinsky in a scholarly debate to no avail and that he had not attended any hearings in the case against Daniel Wozniak, nor had he ordered transcripts.